Rasmussen Polls Should Be Shunned

[babylonsister]

http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2012/9/22/145839/429

Rasmussen Polls Should Be Shunned

by BooMan
Sat Sep 22nd, 2012 at 02:58:39 PM EST


Just a reminder about Rasmussen Polls. They suck. Here's a snippet from Nate Silver's post-2010 midterms analysis:

The 105 polls released in Senate and gubernatorial races by Rasmussen Reports and its subsidiary, Pulse Opinion Research, missed the final margin between the candidates by 5.8 points, a considerably higher figure than that achieved by most other pollsters. Some 13 of its polls missed by 10 or more points, including one in the Hawaii Senate race that missed the final margin between the candidates by 40 points, the largest error ever recorded in a general election in FiveThirtyEight’s database, which includes all polls conducted since 1998.

Moreover, Rasmussen’s polls were quite biased, overestimating the standing of the Republican candidate by almost 4 points on average. In just 12 cases, Rasmussen’s polls overestimated the margin for the Democrat by 3 or more points. But it did so for the Republican candidate in 55 cases — that is, in more than half of the polls that it issued.

If one focused solely on the final poll issued by Rasmussen Reports or Pulse Opinion Research in each state — rather than including all polls within the three-week interval — it would not have made much difference. Their average error would be 5.7 points rather than 5.8, and their average bias 3.8 points rather than 3.9.

Nor did it make much difference whether the polls were branded as Rasmussen Reports surveys, or instead, were commissioned for Fox News by its subsidiary Pulse Opinion Research. (Both sets of surveys used an essentially identical methodology.) Polls branded as Rasmussen Reports missed by an average of 5.9 points and had a 3.9 point bias. The polls it commissioned on behalf of Fox News had a 5.1 point error, and a 3.6 point bias.

more...

snip//

I'd prefer it if their results were simply ignored and their outfit ostracized as bad-faith operators. It's not that I don't believe that Nate can utilize their data usefully, but he's the only one who is making the correction for bias. I do not believe you have any such correction at Real Clear Politics or Talking Points Memo, although I will update and correct this post if I am wrong.

It seems to me that Rasmussen's polls are designed to skew the perception of the state of play in the Republicans' direction, which can help fundraising, press coverage, and morale among activists. It's dishonest and dishonorable, and it is also effective.

People, including, Nate, should know better than to treat them as an honest data point.

[DCBob]

1. Totally agree.

The guy is a political charlatan masquerading as a legitimate pollster.

[shrdlu]

2. Maybe so...

but all I think I know is from the internets where I've read that Rasmussen and Pew tied as the top rated polls in '08 ahead of You/Gov, Polimetrix, and Harris Interactive.

[bluestate10]

4. The reason why is that Rasmussen does a post election adjustment. nt

[Nye Bevan]

6. The study was done by an academic at Fordham University.

Rassmussen and Pew were indeed the most accurate (and this is based on pre-election polls, no post-election adjustment):

Thefollowing list ranks the 23 organizations by the accuracy of their final, national pre- election polls (as reported on pollster.com).

1. Rasmussen (11/1-3)**
1. Pew (10/29-11/1)**
2. YouGov/Polimetrix (10/18-11/1)
3. Harris Interactive (10/20-27)
4. GWU (Lake/Tarrance) (11/2-3)*
5. Diageo/Hotline [phone])*
5. ARG (10/25-27)*
6. CNN (10/30-11/1)
6. Ipsos/McClatchy (10/30-11/1)
7. DailyKos.com (D)/Research 2000 (11/1-3)
8. AP/Yahoo/KN (10/17-27)
9. Democracy Corps (D) (10/30-11/2)
10. FOX (11/1-2)
11. Economist/YouGov (10/25-27)
12. IBD/TIPP (11/1-3)
13. NBC/WSJ (11/1-2)
14. ABC/Post (10/30-11/2)
15. Marist College (11/3)
16. CBS (10/31-11/2)
17. Gallup (10/31-11/2)
18. Reuters/ C-SPAN/ Zogby (10/31-11/3)
19. CBS/Times (10/25-29)
20. Newsweek (10/22-23)

http://www.fordham.edu/images/academics/graduate_schools/gsas/elections_and_campaign_/poll%20accuracy%20in%20the%202008%20presidential%20election.pdf

[DemocratSinceBirth]

9. He Wasn't Very Accurate In 010

He wasn't very accurate in 010 when he overestimated the Republican generic ballot advantage by a whopping 200%:


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/03/how-did-the-polls-do_n_778216.html


BTW, there is little incentive to manipulate a final pre election poll as your predicted results can be compared to the actual results in short order.

[DCBob]

5. He knows how to manipulate the ratings.

He only skews the data in critical contests where it can help the Republican candidate.

[Major Nikon]

7. I'm not sure who is rating them

But if it's a public rating I wouldn't put much stock in it. The portly drug addict and other wingnut pundits promote Rasmussen.

[bluestate10]

3. I got a personal view of the Rasmussen poll during the 2010 race for Governor in my state.

Deval Patrick was leading by 2-4% in most polls. Jill Stein looked like she would pull in 3-4% that would have likely gone to Patrick. Rasmussen had Patrick and the republican, Charles Baker tied coming into election day. Jill Stein got 3% of the final. Patrick won by 6%, the race was over within two hours of the polls closing. Patrick gave a beautiful, forward looking stem-winder of a speech at his victory gathering. I had seldom been prouder of a vote in my life or prouder of the people that joined me in re-electing Patrick. What happened that Rasmussen missed or simply ignored is that Independents broke 2-1 for Patrick over the final week before the election. Had Stein and the republican prevailed, I shudder to think of what my great state would look like today.

[lynne]

8. Fordham University Department of Political Science disagrees -

- as per their analysis of the 2008 polls vs. election results. Rasmussen is rated #1 in accuracy, their pre-election projections were "perfectly in agreement with the actual election results". Their words - not mine.

Fordham's report is here > http://www.fordham.edu/images/academics/graduate_schools/gsas/elections_and_campaign_/poll%20accuracy%20in%20the%202008%20presidential%20election.pdf

Shun them? Sure. At our own peril.

[Blue Yorker]

10. That analysis excludes 2010

2010 gave Rasmussen headaches (he was the worse) due to lack of cell phone polling. It's possible that his lack of cell-phone polling began to affect his accuracy after 2008. The Fordham piece might be irrelevant.

In fact, Nate Silver recently showed how pollsters who include cell phones have a much larger Obama lead than pollsters who don't. Rasmussen is among those where Obama is doing moor poorly, in his no-cell world.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

11. See Nine

BTW, by 11/5 I'll bet I can nail 99% of the races the next day just be looking at aggregate polling.

[Drahthaardogs]

12. Methodologies need to change with times and technology. It is not 2008 any longer.

Rasmussen still uses robo calling and does not call cell phones. It is a fact that 33% of the population ONLY use cell phones. This was not true in 2008. At one time, Zogby was a darned good pollster, some considered him the best. Now, he has gone into obscurity. Times change but Rasmussen is still using a 1990 model and it just does not work any longer.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

13. He's Too Cheap To Hire Real People To Make Calls

You can't auto-dial cell phone users.